Re: RFC: Evolution of the em driver - FreeBSD

This is a discussion on Re: RFC: Evolution of the em driver - FreeBSD ; On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 09:06:39PM -0600, Scott Long wrote:
> There are too many examples to name in every OS of drivers that have
> tried in vain to support diverging hardware evolutionary paths. if_dc
> and if_bge ...

Re: RFC: Evolution of the em driver

On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 09:06:39PM -0600, Scott Long wrote:
> There are too many examples to name in every OS of drivers that have
> tried in vain to support diverging hardware evolutionary paths. if_dc
> and if_bge are great (or horrible, depending on your perspective)
> examples of this in FreeBSD. My vote is to nip the madness in the bud
> on if_em and have two (or more drivers) that support their hardware
> families well instead of one driver that supports multiple families
> marginally.

For what it's worth, I agree with Scott. I'd rather see a new and
separate driver (presumably igb(4)) than a "hacked up" em(4) driver
trying to handle tons of IC revisions. A good example of the insanity
the latter causes is nve(4) vs. nfe(4). :-)